Hope in Disorientation

We saw Sufjan Stevens last week. Though it was not quite the performance I expected or hoped for, it was a uniquely strong communal experience, and more impressive than the songs, compositions, or light-show themselves was the way the collective breath of 2,700 people was held, the wind knocked out of us, our stomach in knots. This was more than attending a funeral, this was sitting in silence for the week following, like the friends of grieving Job. No one spoke a word, for they saw that his suffering was very great. It was unexpectedly intense, living loss together.



This performance by Sandra McCracken strikes me the same way, an expression of loss and disorientation, and it's not difficult to enter into it and live it with her, evident that she's singng from experience. The only difference is a resolute hope, a tenacity that yearns toward the light that surely exists at the end of the tunnel, and that important difference is certainly a tad healthier than the few passing references offered us on Carrie and Lowell.



To be honest, feeling lost has been a recurring and overwhelming theme over the course of the past 4+ years. Many have looked at me as if they don't understand and don't care to understand, but one man listened carefully, lived it with me a bit, and asked me to read Psalm 43:3 to see if it spoke to the feeling.

Send out your light and your truth;
    let them lead me;
let them bring me to your holy hill
    and to your dwelling!

It was basically the first time I paid attention to the verse. It's become an anthem since, and in the past few months so has this song, as it captures fully the essence of weary waiting and orients me again in the one and only direction I know is worth heading.